I Live on the Land in Global Games-Chapter 415 - 403: The Pond at the Bottom of the Well

Mu Ying drank a bottle of Breathing Potion and then induced a vine to grow down along the edge of the well.

After that, she took Prince Toad with her and jumped into the well, holding onto the vine. Yiyeta stayed at the mouth of the well to keep watch and was to restore the well’s appearance when they emerged.

The well was quite deep, with narrow walls extending over ten meters before it opened up several meters into the water.

Since the green witch’s body lacked Dark Vision, Mu Ying took a hardened Lamp Vine Flower for illumination.

At first glance, there was nothing special at the bottom of the well, not even a single toad visible.

"Where are your people?" Mu Ying asked the Prince Toad she was holding.

"Over... over there," Prince Toad pointed in a direction.

Mu Ying swam in that direction, and before long, they entered a sizable natural underground cavern, which was connected to the water well by a passage. This must be the pond that Prince Toad was talking about.

There were many algae plants growing on the surface, and the toads hid among them, staring in terror at the intruder who was holding their prince, all in complete silence.

"You see, it’s just an ordinary little pond, nothing remarkable!" Prince Toad truly didn’t know what she wanted to see.

"The pond might be ordinary, but this cavern is not," Mu Ying said as she looked at the moss on the cavern walls.

Her guess was indeed correct; these toads could talk and even transform into people, which was certainly strange.

The source of it all was the moss on the ceiling of the cavern.

Dark green, with needle-like soft leaves, the tips bulging out like water droplets. When squeezed, juice oozed out; unripened ones had green juice, while ripe ones had red juice.

This was transformation moss!

A rare plant that Mu Ying had only seen in herbal medicine records, said to have not been discovered in the wild by witches for over a thousand years.

Unexpectedly, there was such a large patch here.

The transformation moss on the top of the cavern was still intact, but the ones near the water surface had been nibbled bald.

It was obvious who had nibbled them.

The herb itself had transformative and intellect-enhancing effects, which were more pronounced when cultivated with magic power.

However, because this herb is hard to cultivate, it is rarely used in magic potions nowadays. This is also why transformation potions are extremely rare today. Even if available, their effects are very limited.

Previously, Mu Ying had traded Dingling Flowers for an ancient magic potion formula that included a Disguise Potion, primarily using this herb.

Now, witches wanting to disguise themselves and change their appearance use aging potions and Youthful Potions instead. By altering their apparent age, they change their looks, like Su Na who previously applied to be a fairy godmother.

Although these two potions are only effective for a short duration, once used, the body’s state aligns with the appearance during the potion’s activation.

Older witches using Youthful Potions are okay as they become younger overall, but younger witches using this potion genuinely experience an "energy drain."

The Disguise Potion changes appearance much more significantly than these two potions, affecting men, women, the elderly, and even children.

As for the intellect-enhancing effect, Mu Ying remembered it could bring the intelligence of ordinary animals to about that of a human teenager, enabling them to speak. However, transforming directly into a human only had a very small chance of success.

It was quite normal for the toads to have transformed this way after consuming too much transformation moss.

Fortunately, the toads couldn’t reach the ones on the cave ceiling, so they remained intact. However, they hadn’t fully matured yet, so it would take some time to collect the spores.

The moment Mu Ying saw these mosses, she realized she couldn’t leave anytime soon. She couldn’t call herself a green witch without getting some transformation moss seeds.

So, she swam back to the well, climbed up, and said to Yiyeta, "I found some interesting plants here. I’ll be staying a while. After I go down later, you can restore the well. Once I’m done, I’ll call you with a Dingling Flower. Same price as before."

Yiyeta could make some more money, so of course, she had no objections.

The one who had objections was Prince Toad.

"Why have you come back?" Prince Toad, who was in the midst of recounting his harrowing escape from a powerful witch to his people, heard the splash and was completely bothered.

"I haven’t just returned; I’ll be staying here for a while! Just go about your business as if I’m not here," Mu Ying said.

Prince Toad abandoned his previously held belief that a witch might not be so fierce. Perhaps they weren’t fierce, but they were definitely malevolent, making the frogs shiver in terror.

"The reason you can talk is that you’ve been eating these mosses, but I suggest you wait until they grow red droplets—that’s when the effect is best," Mu Ying kindly suggested, respecting their territory.

It was a pity that those immature ones had been nibbled bald.

This information shocked the toads, prompting a clamor of discussions.

"Prince, didn’t you say we weren’t ordinary toads? Like the werewolves, are we toad people too?"

"Yeah, yeah, I wondered why the freshly born tadpoles couldn’t talk. It turns out they couldn’t reach the moss."

"And the small toads can’t talk either, definitely because they haven’t eaten much of it!"

"But why can the Prince transform into a human?"

...

"Probably because he was just lucky, it’s a very small probability event."

Mu Ying truly thought Prince Toad was lucky; this probability was even lower than winning a lottery, and he had stumbled upon it.

Prince Toad: "..."

There went his credibility!

No matter how uncomfortable the toads were, Mu Ying still firmly settled in the pond.

She prompted the growth of a giant lotus leaf with thick stems that extended over two meters out of the water. Then, she placed her Space Travel Box and Portable Medicine Garden on the lotus leaf. Standing on the lotus leaf allowed her direct access to the transformation moss on the cave ceiling.

While waiting for the moss to mature, she manually created a shaded, moist area within her Portable Medicine Garden to closely mimic the environment of the pond, attempting a direct transplantation.

With the current scene as a reference, setting up such a small planting area was feasible.

Additionally, she took out the formula for the Disguise Potion to study. With such a magical potion now hopeful of being made, she certainly wanted to try it out.

She had found the main ingredient for this potion, but there were other components she didn’t yet have. However, these were not hard to procure. She simply searched the Witch Association’s item list, buying some prepared medicinal ingredients and seeds of the herbal medicines she lacked.

From their initial caution and fear, the toads gradually became accustomed to her presence.